It sounds like an existentialist smorgasbord: cultural heritage, nostalgia, memory, diversity, spirituality, oppression, hope, isolation, beauty, serenity and integrity. No, this is not the path of the Buddha but a list of themes explored in the new exhibit of paintings at Daybreak Star Indian Art Gallery, entitled "Reunion of the Condor, Eagle and Raven: Three Perspectives on Experience and Hope."The exhibit, which runs through April 23, brings together three artists working in a variety of mediums: abstract painter and collage artist Esperanza (Gomez) Grundy, portraitist Joshua Langstaff and Ben Paul, a photographer and sculptor.
"What's your favorite film?" young Ludovic (Rupert Friend) quizzes Mrs. Palfrey (Joan Plowright), his 77-year-old dinner guest. "'Brief Encounter,'" she answers, explaining that the classic tearjerker sparked long-ago love between her and her now-dead husband. "And your favorite song?" "'For All We Know,'" she replies, opining it's too old a number for the boy to know. The camera holds on Plowright's expressive face, as Ludo softly sings a sweet hymn to brief encounters ("we may never meet again") and seizing the day ("tomorrow may never come, for all we know"). During that glowing interlude - three-quarters of the way through Dan Ireland's "Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont" - Plowright teaches us the pleasures of witnessing a distinctive woman/actress at work, pressing into service her seasoned beauty and a lifetime's wisdom to project visible memories, experiences, the ghosts of lovers and players past. All of this wealth passes eloquently over her face like movies of her past. We, along with her serenader, are privileged to witness the sum of her losses as well as the shining imagination that counts them as nothing.
"The web of community building and movement building has risen to new heights in Seattle," said Shannon Thomas, executive director of the Seattle LGBT Community Center. The center listened - and is now working collaboratively with our lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgendered and questioning communities, organizations and individuals to support and design a roster of activities to take place during Pride month in June. The highlight of the weekend will be The Queerstock Festival on the Hill. Presented in collaboration with Three Dollar Bill Cinema and Bent: A Queer Writing Institute, Queerstock will showcase music, spoken word, workshops and movies. Since 1995, Queerstock has been a vehicle for out artists to be themselves and to showcase their talents in safe, independent and supportive environments. Queer-stock has been touring the country and inviting audiences of all ages, sexualities, genders and beliefs to come and experience freedom of expression in every form.
No one who has seen "La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc," Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1928 silent masterpiece, can forget Falconetti's shattering performance as the God-driven Maid of Orléans. Chronicling Joan's torture, trial and conviction, "Passion" is shot almost entirely in near-unbearable closeups that terraform the actress' luminous face into a landscape of the soul. To go from Dreyer's ecstatic cinema to Marc Rothemund's plain-speaking, insistently undramatic "Sophie Scholl - The Final Days" is to descend from the sublime to the prosaic. What these two movies have in common is directorial fascination with the transcendent face of faith, whether projected by a 19-year-old French peasant in the 15th century or a 21-year-old student in Nazi Germany.Two previous films (Michael Verhoeven's "The White Rose" and Percy Adlon's "Five Last Days," both made in 1982) have celebrated the martyrdom of Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans and the other University of Munich students whose peaceful attempts to sabotage the Third Reich led to their arrest and execution in 1943, just as Germany was sinking into defeat. Newly discovered transcripts and eyewitness testimony inspired Rothemund to bring an almost documentary eye to bear on this latest dramatization of the short, brave life of one of Germany's most revered heroines. (In the 2002 documentary "Blind Spot - Hitler's Secretary," title person Trudl Junge describes the impact of her realization that she was about the same age as martyred Sophie Scholl when she first came to work for the Führer; it triggered a minor moral epiphany she took a lifetime to achieve.)
On Feb. 27, King County joined the state of Washington and the city of Seattle in having an official symbol that matches the face of the person after whom the jurisdiction is named. Seattle has Chief Sealth. The state has George Washington. The King County Council's vote makes this county the first in the nation to adopt the image of our foremost civil rights leader, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as our official logo. This is a cause for celebration and the culmination of an effort that spans three decades. When the council-with a final vote of 7-2 - approved this historic ordinance, an audience that stretched beyond our council chambers burst into thunderous applause and a chorus of "We Shall Overcome."Adopting the image of Dr. King as our logo gives respect and visibility to the fact that our county is named in honor of Dr. King. We are celebrating the 20th anniversary of becoming Martin Luther King Jr. County. In 1986, the King County Council - led by councilmembers Bruce Laing and Ron Sims-chose to recognize the life and legacy of America's foremost civil rights leader with approval of a motion renaming this county in honor of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
You'd have to start with the weather. You might remember that last Saturday morning was crisp, cool and clean in a way that gives Seattle a very good name. But rather than simply celebrate the sunshine, more than 45 Miller Park residents opted for a morning stroll with Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels instead of any number of recreational pursuits the day suggested.The mayor has been on countless neighborhood walks throughout the city during his tenure. But this one should stay in his memory for awhile. The 90 minutes he spent near the problematic area around 20th Avenue East and East Madison Street should serve to remind him of the neighborhood's chronic issues as well as the large number of community members committed to working to resolve them.
Last summer, when the City Council voted to increase allowable building height along Broadway to 65 feet, it was understood that a zoning increase would not magically cure Broadway's ills. In part to codify that awareness, $500,000 was earmarked for Broadway, money meant to help point the business district in a positive direction.The question now is how to spend it.
How widespread do you think the story of Jesus would be had there not been powerful writers Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Of course, word could have spread by mouth, but reading often makes a lasting impression. Reading, or rereading, before we tell, or re-tell, material can be helpful, too. Dunlap Elementary School is one of seven Seattle schools - the others are Beacon Hill, Dunlap, Graham Hill, Hawthorne, John Muir, Arbor Heights, and the New School at Southshore - where 2,522 students participate in a writing program called Powerful Writers, part of the Powerful Schools nonprofit organization. Dunlap's Powerful Writers teacher coach is Eva McGough, "Miss Eva" to students and faculty. Once a week for six weeks Miss Eva comes to Dunlap where she teaches second-through fifth-graders, who are always addressed as "writers." Armed with handouts prepared by Powerful Schools and personal examples, she enthusiastically gets the children's attention by teaching them how to select a topic, organize their ideas, pre-write, draft, revise, edit, and polish their compositions.
When I was growing up in southwestern Michigan (Niles), we had frequent winter blizzards. I believed that the whole nation, except California and Florida, was as cold as we were. We did not get a TV until the late 1950s, and we were still a few decades away from accurate national weather maps. It wasn't until I was almost an adult that I understood that, because of all of the moisture in the air, the Great Lakes Region had its own particular weather pattern. I now know that every region in America has its own unique weather problems.Our perspective of the world is impacted by where we live and our knowledge base is almost identical to the people that we live around. So what we mean when we say that everyone believes a particular thing is that all of the five people we talk to almost every day see the world that way. African family history is often done orally and is the re-telling of stories that we have passed down from generation to generation. It's part of the African traditional way of communicating knowledge and was a necessity in America because Africans were not allowed to read or write for over 300 years. There is nothing wrong with the process, as long as the story we are passing down is both accurate about the past and optimistic about our present and future in America.In my family tree I represent the third generation from slavery. My grandmother's parents were slaves when they were children. She was the first generation from slavery and she lived with us, off and on, for the first 13 years of my life. She could vividly remember what her parents told her about slavery. So as I was growing up, slavery was not ancient history for me, it was almost yesterday.
If you have ever asked yourself the question "Bullfight or no bullfight?" while visiting Mexico, conflicting images probably jumped before your eyes. Trumpets heralding the entrance of the proud and handsome matador in his majestic, spangled costume - the graceful sweep of his cape with "Ole'" echoing throughout the crowd - only to be quickly followed by the nasty squirm in your stomach since you know the valiant toro will inevitably die a slow death. Your inner voice is telling you "This is immoral . . . wrong, wrong, wrong! " Besides, isn't it really just a tasteless event for jaded tourists? Well, I say go. Go because in the words of the great Spanish matador Mario Carrion: "Bullfighting is a type of dramatic ballet dance with death... the bullfighter must control his movements, maintaining the rhythm, not of music, but of danger."
A packed house greeted Sung Yang, senior policy advisor to Mayor Greg Nickels, at the March 9 joint meeting of the Rotary Club of SODO and the South Downtown Business Association at Starbucks Center. As he gave an update on Mayor Greg Nickel's proposal to put a strip club zone in Seattle's South End industrial area, 60 local business people, professionals, and residents struck a polite yet pointed tone.After welcoming members and guests, business association president Mike Perringer tactfully introduced Yang and "the issue of the gentlemen's clubs.""Adult nude dancing is a form of free expression," Yang said. "From a land use standpoint, we had to place this use somewhere in the city."He described the proposal as, "a conscientious effort to make sure Seattle would not be a strip club friendly city."The proposed area extends from I-5 over to ThirdAvenue South, and from South Walker to Dawson Street, just short of the Holgate Bridge down to the railroad tracks. Roughly equal halves extend north and south of the West Seattle Bridge, encompassing 333 parcels spread over 310 acres.
It is 11 a.m. Sunday morning, and the Central Area Senior Center has been converted to a meeting house for a small branch of the Religious Society of Friends, known to many people as Quakers. Approximately 35 casually dressed members of the South Seattle Worship Group sit in a three-tiered circle of chairs absorbed in silent meditation. In keeping with the Quaker "testimony of simplicity," the room is modestly furnished with no adornments, statues or flowers. The west wall is full of windows commanding a panoramic view of Lake Washington and the Cascade Mountains.Although these "Friends," which Quakers also call themselves, are wont to share hymns and traditional music at other times, their sacred Sunday worship invites no such boisterous interruptions. Most eyes are closed but others gaze softly at some self-defined space. While the hands of a simple wall clock imperceptibly nudge away at the hour, very little else happens in the material realm. Everyone waits quietly, listening for the spirit of God, also referred to as the "Light" to speak from within. This is the practice known to Friends as "sitting in the Light."
Once a year, I indulge in corned beef and cabbage. As much as I love this dish, it just never occurs to me to make it for any meal other than dinner on St. Patrick's Day. Likewise, on St. Paddy's, I couldn't imagine eating anything but corned beef and cabbage. In spite of its reputation, corned beef and cabbage is more Irish-American than traditional Irish, according to the all-things-Irish Web site, www. irishcultureandcustoms.com. Apparently, both customary and current tastes in Ireland tend toward salted or smoked pork, and boiled bacon with cabbage is the country's choice for March 17. It wasn't until the Irish immigrated to America and Canada, where beef was more affordable and plentiful, that the practice of curing the meat in a fashion similar to pork became commonplace and salt-cured ("corned") beef morphed into a "traditional" Irish dish - though nowadays corned beef is generally brined in a mixture of spices and salt water rather then dry-rubbed with salt.
In spite of the time-honored warning, the English Speaking Union Shakespeare Committee is meeting on March 15 at the Queen Anne home of Sara Reed-Plum to finalize plans for the New York trip awarded to the winner of the High School Shakespeare Competition. The local branch of the competition took place Feb. 12 at the E.E. Bach Theatre of Seattle Pacific University, with 13 contestants from local high schools performing a Shake-spearean sonnet and a 20-line monologue from one of the plays. Shakespeare 2006 is open to any 10th-, 11th- or 12th-grader from a participating public, private or parochial school. This acting and recitation contest provides schools with a curriculum-based program to encourage high school students to develop their language and dramatic talents. Also, of course, the purpose of the English Speaking Union's National Shake-speare Competition is to help students develop and communicate their understanding of Shakespeare and his universal language.
Life has a way of lulling you into a sense of complacency as we slog through our daily routine - working at our jobs, raising our children, paying the mortgage, all the things that define the good life in America.Then, life bites you right on the butt.We've all had friends, relatives and neighbors who suffered debilitating illnesses or injuries, but we seldom think it will happen to us. Well, the odds will catch up with most of us eventually, and I guess it was our turn.Although my wife and I have both had medical episodes over the years, except for a couple of scares we've fared quite well. Don't get me wrong, our latest misfortune was neither life threatening nor as difficult as what some folks deal with every day, but it brought a different dynamic to our relationship.